


The Leash at Both Ends

by Arcanista



Series: Our Own Sins [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, F/M, Femdom, First Kiss, Inquisitor not named in text, No Romance, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Someone had to use this codex entry, pregnancy mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4011730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcanista/pseuds/Arcanista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor presents Samson with three gifts: he has asked for none.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leash at Both Ends

Samson knows of the Inquisitor's return to Skyhold by the cheering. For a moment he thinks the deed might be done, and Corypheus dead, but then he recalls some of her last words to him, that she was leaving on some sort of 'practice run'. Well, not long now until the end, he supposes. He doesn't go out to watch her arrive; free as he might be to do so, he still feels tightly leashed to his small quarters.

Dagna leaves him be that day, and the next, and he passes the time alone, in silence. Now, at least, the Inquisitor's 'gift' to him does not nag at him, concealed within his desk-drawer. It certainly was a goad to him before, though he held to her stricture the whole time she was away.

In the evening of the second day, the Inquisitor comes. This day she does not come dressed to entice, and her perfume is subtle. She strides into his room without so much as a knock, long leather coat swishing at her ankles.

"Inquisitor," says Samson. He doesn't rise; merely stays seated on his bed. It is as far as he stretches his defiance, with her.

"Samson," she says, looking down her nose at him. No, this isn't one of her sex-games; her voice is chill as ice. "I came across something upon this most recent journey, something I thought you should have." She tucks a hand into her coat, without waiting for Samson's response.

"For me?" says Samson, raising his eyebrows. He leans back, on his guard. Whatever it is she has to offer him, he knows he won't care for it. "You shouldn't have."

The Inquisitor just smiles, her thin pink lips tight. Strange to see them a colour other than lyrium-red. She draws out a slip of parchment from her coat, and holds it out to him. She remains utterly immobile beside that, silently demanding he rise to fetch it from her.

Or... no, not immobile, not at all. In her hand, her left hand, the Fade-touched one that holds the parchment, Samson notices a wicked tremor. She is revealing something to him, with this, but what it means he cannot say. Samson rises, takes the parchment, and withdraws, seating himself once more on his bed.

Before he unfolds it, Samson dares a glance up at the Inquisitor, searching her icy amber eyes. He shudders and looks away; he is accustomed to cruelty from them, accustomed to spite. He cannot bear the implacable compassion he sees there now. He looks to her 'gift'.

_My dearest Fennela,_

_How are you? How is your Aunt Kaitlen? My dear girl would never give trouble, I hope? How are your studies? Perhaps you could read some of this letter to her, to show her how much you're learning._

_I am sorry to have been away for so long. I have a duty. Remember when mother was very sick, and she asked you to fetch her water, and you did it because you loved her? It's like that. Sometimes we have to do difficult things, because they help other people that we love. The country is ill, and I have to try to make her better. Don't worry— I am not alone here, and now we have special medicine that will make us stronger so we can fight better._

_It won't be long 'til all the mages are all gone and we're safe again. I will be home soon._

_All my love and prayers,_   
_Father_

He reads the words on the page once, then twice, the words blurring on the page. "What is this?" he asks her hoarsely. "Why would you show this to me?"

The Inquisitor tilts her head toward him a hint. "Because," she says, "I knew you would want it."

"How does someone like _you_  know the slightest thing about what I _want_?" Despite himself, the words come out torn halfway between anger and exhaustion. It is all he has left to give; that there is any anger left surprises him, but only a little. She has been trying to wake it in him, after all, hasn't she? He might have thought this another move in that game of hers, but something in her eyes gives him pause. Something in her acid compassion.

"How indeed," says the Inquisitor, thin-lipped smile returning to her face. "I gave you a copy. I hold the original. I remember the names of the fallen, those who die at my hand. I do not forget these things. I think you do not, either."

Samson closes his eyes, fingers curling the page tight enough it rattles in his grip. "No," he says. "I don't."

When he opens his eyes, she's still there, standing by the door and watching him. "What will you do?" Samson asks her, not meeting her eyes again.

"Do?" she echoes, and cocks her head. She looks down at him as if he's some sort of insect to study. "Why, nothing. What can I offer this girl, or her aunt; I who orphaned her? No, the girl's father left her in the care of someone he trusted to raise her. Let her never know the truth of it. Is it not right?"

He sees the sense in it, and sighs, even as his heart bleeds for his failures. "It is, Inquisitor."

The Inquisitor gives him the barest of nods once more, and he sees the acknowledgement there at last: kin to kin, martyr to martyr. "So it is," she says, and turns away from him. "Good night, Samson."

* * *

She leaves him be with his sorrows, for longer than he might have wished. He holds to her stricture the entire time, never entirely sure why.

When she returns to him, Corypheus is dead. The celebrations have come and gone, whirling apart from him. He scarcely notices, but for the noise. He does notice her approach, by the ringing of her heels and the drift of her perfume. Samson swallows, fingers trembling on the edge of his bed. He does not know what she will demand of him this time, even as he knows he will give it.

Today she wears trousers of tight black leather, and a loose satin shirt the colour of new cream with a wide collar laced with a cord. Her lips once more are crimson, red as blood, red as lyrium. "Samson," she says, her voice deep and throaty, caressing his name.

Despite himself, Samson rises and stands before her. "Inquisitor," he says, the only name he has for her, this ink-haired siren. He looks down at her, and feels as if he looks up.

The Inquisitor cocks her head at him and smiles. Her shoulders are square, confident; the tremor, the weakness that showed in her on her last visit is nowhere in evidence. "Samson," she repeats, tongue lingering on the syllables. "Have you been true to me?"

"True as I've ever been," he says, lip twisting with irony. She smiles in return, and a chill runs down his spine; does that smile look so bent, so demented on him as well?

The Inquisitor raises her left hand halfway, the gesture regal enough to outstrip ten Divines. "Well then," she says, and her smile turns into something else, at once erotic and predatory. "I have a mind to reward you."

Samson half-turns from her. "Spare me your gifts, Inquisitor, or your rewards. I want none of it. And none of you. Leave me to rot in peace."

"Even so," says the Inquisitor, with a laugh that comes from her chest. She spreads her arms wide, and turns a full circle before him. With one eye, Samson watches her. "You may touch me, Samson. Once, and only once."

Samson swallows, his breath caught in his throat. He faces her once more, takes in her slender form. She holds that pose of entreaty, and he imagines what he might do with the liberty she offers. Her breasts, through the satin shirt, her round backside. Samson wets his lips, and contemplates what she offers him.

He thinks to her words, and he realizes: _this too is a test_. There might not be a wrong answer here, but there is only one right one. Samson looks at the Inquisitor, at the line of defiance set in her jaw, at the pride in the curve of her fingers. The look in her eyes that _dares_  him.

Samson knows the answer the Inquisitor wants. And he gives it to her: he leans back, and backhands her hard across the cheek, striking her so hard she stumbles, catching herself against the wall.

Left hand clutching her cheek, she looks up at him, and the fire in her eyes is enough to nearly strike him down at the knees. Like a snake, she darts to him, closing the three-step gap between them. She plants her lips to his, tongue thrusting into his mouth, and her sheer momentum drives him toward the back wall. She pins him there, this fiendish elf, on her toes and with her hands pressed above his shoulders, and she drinks his mouth.

He halfway thinks she means to devour the remaining shreds of his soul.

But it ends, leaving him and her both breathless. He still does not dare to touch her again. Her eyes flick to his hands, and she smiles. "I like you," she whispers, giving him a dreadful sinking feeling. "You'd strike a pregnant woman?" Her smile is bright and impish.

Samson jerks away as best as the position against the wall allows him. It is not far at all. "You're _pregnant_?" he hisses, voice going quiet for reasons he can barely fathom.

She withdraws from him, laughing. "Oh yes," she says. "I dare a great deal. You should remember daring, Samson. Another gift then, before I go: do as you will with the memory of this evening. Though I would have you tell me what you do. At a later date."

The Inquisitor bends as she steps backwards, away from Samson, and opens his desk drawer. She removes the underthings she'd left unguarded with him, and tucks them away; where exactly, Samson cannot quite make out. She leaves him there, door snicking shut behind her.

Samson leans against the wall of his room, with the back of his hand still stinging, her taste still on his lips.


End file.
